"As we pass the one month anniversary of the general availability of Windows 8, we are pleased to announce that to-date Microsoft has sold 40 million Windows 8 licenses. Tami Reller shared this news with industry and financial analysts, investors and media today at the Credit Suisse 2012 Annual Technology Conference. Windows 8 is outpacing Windows 7 in terms of upgrades." Not bad, but there are the usual asterisks, as Ars notes.

What press releases? Arstechnica reported on Windows Phone sales quadrupling Year over Year, my app download counts is a statistic of my own, and the Windows 8 halo effect comes from the fact that the timing is coincidentally following the launch of Windows 8.

It therefore isn't a stretch to conclude that Windows 8 produced a lift in uptake for Windows Phone.

Well, you picked the part of the article where Ars technica was simply relaying a PR release by Microsoft. But there was more to that piece; the author commented how Microsoft didn't release actual numbers, making the "quadrupling" claim kind of useless/misleading since we lack the actual number that it's being quadrupled according to Redmond.

Furthermore, since we have no idea what your app is, or how many downloads it generated. I can't take that "halo" claim at face value. E.g. Why would a desktop operating system lead to an increase of sales of a random mobile app?

I assume you're either employed by Microsoft or Nokia, or you have a vested interest in the windows phone platform doing well if your app depends on its adoption rates. So I'll have to take what you say with a grain of salt, which I guess that was my point.

Anyhow. The new lumias seem to have had a relatively strong initial sales launch according to some analysts. Hopefully that brings some good news for Nokia, that stock needs all the help it can get after a 4 year nose dive.